Profit builder

These effects transactions involving leases and transactions where there is a change in beneficial ownership of dutiable property in Victoria.

The duty payable on a dutiable lease transaction or a change in beneficial ownership of dutiable property can be up to 5.5% of the unencumbered value of the underlying land. Examples include:

1. A sale of a business which includes a lease being assigned to the purchaser;

2. A grant of a lease where amounts other than rent or outgoings are payable (e.g. a lease premium);

3. A transfer or assignment of a lease where consideration is payable for the transfer or assignment;

4. The surrender of a lease of the kind referred to at 2 or 3 above.

5. The creation or cessation of a trust over land, or a change in trustee in respect of a trust over land.

You may have plenty of thoughts about how you will spend your retirement...visits with the grandchildren, a trip across country, days on the golf green. But have you thought about your business?

Did you know that barely 30 percent of family businesses survive into the second generation and fewer than 15 percent of them endure into the third? A lack of solid vision and succession planning will prevent your business from making it into that 30 percent. It's important not to see your retirement as an event but as a process that your business must go through.

Typical succession plans have two important elements to consider:

Transferring power-consider who is best suited to have control over and make decisions about how your business operates. While you may want your family members to receive the wealth concentrated in the business, you may not have a family member who is qualified or who wants to run your business. Identifying someone who can run the business and continue your vision is not a decision to be left to happenstance or successful schmoozing. Exercise care and consider what qualities make a good leader, who demonstrates those qualities and who is enthusiastic and really qualified to run your business.

Transferring assets-this is the process of transferring your wealth from the business to the new owners. The beneficiaries may be different from the people to whom you have decided to transfer power, so this will require explicit instruction and planning.

Recognising that "employees are not the paid enemy" is a necessary step toward a workplace culture that fosters high retention and financial success, says Roche Australia's national L&D manager, Becky Casey.

"We think we've got a winning formula, and we're looking forward to increased competition as other companies 'get with the culture program'".

The culture at Roche, she says, feels like that of a small family company despite it being a multinational with thousands of employees, and is driven from the top down.

Casey notes that culture is often referred to as "the way we do things around here", but she thinks "that relates more to some dysfunctional cultures".

"'The way we do things around here' implies that if you do anything new or different, it's going to be wrong, and there's a very clear right or wrong. That doesn't leave any room for innovation, and innovation is one of the key drivers at Roche."

Culture, ultimately, "gives messages to employees", she says. The messages Roche gives - and the actions it takes to back them up - include:

• We're not hiding things from you - "There's a lot of openness on plans about where we're heading and our profit and loss. Our GM and head of sales and marketing could not be more open. They communicate frequently, consistently and honestly. We have a good old-fashioned town hall meeting once a year, and we also have national sales conferences and cycle meetings where we're told very frankly, 'this is how it is' business-wise and people-wise'."
• We value you - "Remuneration and benefits are obviously important culturally, and [Roche's are] on par with the industry. They do tend to go up every year so people are quite well paid."
• We have a say - Roche Australia has "a degree of autonomy" from its parent, "so as long as what we're doing is legal and within guidelines, we pretty much can do what we want to do to make the business work in Australia".
  
  Casey notes that many new initiatives developed in Australia have been taken up internationally, "which is exciting when you think we have 700 employees compared to the 80,000 globally. It's nice to know that what we put forward is taken seriously".
• Bad behaviour will not be tolerated - "Everyone knows that there is no bullying or harassment," Casey says. "They know that. It hasn't always been like that; there was a time when a number of directors were fired quite openly. But in the almost six years that I've been at Roche I've known of one case where a senior manager was fired because of harassment. The issue was raised and dealt with in about three days and he was gone."
• It's OK to be yourself at work - On the flip side of bad behaviour, Casey points out there's "high levels of energy, fun and activity... It's very normal for people to joke in meetings, and the GM has us in stitches regularly."
• We take recruitment of the right people seriously - Roche moved its recruitment to an in-house model about eight years ago and Casey says it saves the business about $2 million a year. "But what those recruitment specialists know about the business probably saves us a huge amount more," she adds.
• We take L&D very seriously - Roche also has an in-house learning and development team that saves about $2 million a year, Casey says, and is about to launch a career development centre that does the same work as an outplacement team, "but in-house in order to retain our high performers".
  
  (Last year, Roche filled 67 per cent of its management vacancies from within its ranks.)
• Family is important - Roche is "a family company without being a family company. People are open about their family lives and their obligations and needs and wants outside of work and that's accepted.
  
  "So [if] you've got a child's sports day to attend, well, you're an adult, you know what your work is, you know what your outputs are, see you later."
  
  Roche provides an extra three days of personal leave each year (on top of annual leave) and three months' parental leave, "which a lot of men in the organisation have taken up".
• Performance is important - "If you aren't performing, the business doesn't carry you."

Some 83 per cent of employees believe that working at Roche enables them to grow and develop, and 90 per cent say that Roche is a well-managed company, she says.

She points out that Roche's senior managers model the behaviour the company wants to see.

"It's pointless to say that 'we have great work/life balance here' when you have middle managers and senior managers still in the office at 8 o'clock at night. Generally the carpark at our head office is full at about 8.30am and empty at about 5.30pm, and that includes everybody. We don't work long hours; when we are there, we work hard, but we're not there forever because we've got other things to do."